“Terrible title. But yeah. Something like that.”
The sky through the skylight darkens from navy to ink. More stars appear, faint but stubborn. The trees creak and whisper. My body sinks into the mattress.
We end up drifting closer until our legs tangle and my head finds the spot on his chest that fits like it was built there. His hand slides into my hair, fingers gentle. Under my ear, his heartbeat is steady.
“Volume?” he murmurs one more time.
“Three,” I say. “Maybe two-point-five.”
“Nice,” he says softly. “Mine’s like… four. But manageable.”
“We’re in range,” I whisper.
“We’re in a tree,” he corrects.
“Both can be true,” I say.
I listen to the wind and the waves and the stubborn beat of my own heart refusing to quit. I think of the kid I was,standing in a parking lot staring up at a secondhand treehouse in someone else’s yard, wanting.
I think of the hospital ceiling full of holes.
Then I think of this one—wood and sky and faint stars—over my head instead.
“I’m scared,” I say into his shirt.
“Of the animals?” he says, hand smoothing down my back. “Me too. I feel like I’m gonna wake up as the starring role in some kid movie where the birds are forcing me to sing.”
“I’m glad we’re here,” I add, so quiet I almost don’t hear it.
He kisses the top of my head. “Me too,hermoso,” he says. “Me too.”
For once, the sentence doesn’t feel like a lie.
I fall asleep to the sound of trees and his breathing, and when the waves of panic lap at the edge of my mind, they’re smaller.
FIFTY
MIGUEL
After the third day, when the sun finishes bleeding out behind the trees, the entire world has gone dark except for our little bubble of light in the branches. The treehouse glows warm and golden—fairy lights on the railing outside and a couple of lamps inside turned low. Beyond that, there are black silhouettes of redwoods, a strip of sky salted with stars, and the distant hiss of the ocean. No cars. No campus noise. Just wind and wood and us.
Caleb is “finishing his journal entry.”
Which is suspicious as hell if you ask me.
“I’m gonna brush my teeth,” I say, stretching as I stand from the couch. “Don’t burn the tree down.”
“Can’t make promises,” he says absently, pen scratching across the page at the little table. “I mean, Ihavebeen itching to make some popcorn.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re chaos incarnate,” I say, ruffling his mop of hair as I pass. He makes a face and bats my hand away, but he’s smiling. Silent volume check, his eyes are bright, his shoulders loose.
Whatever it is, it is.
This is like the smallest bathroom on the planet, the mirror a little fogged from our earlier shower after hiking. Poor ventilation… might wanna bring it up to the owners.Mold is a bitch to get rid of.I take my time—teeth, face, and a splash of cool water on my neck. When I step out, rubbing my face dry on the towel, the air in the main room feels… different.
Quieter.
The lamp by the couch is off and only the fairy lights outside and the string of warm bulbs along the loft railing are on, throwing soft, shifting light across the floor.
